Summer 09 - Release 1 (June 18, 2009)

What's New?

Category: Axess Syncing (Course Enrollment) / Site Membership

Feature: Manually added students updated by sync when officially enrolled

Description: When students are added manually to a site (by instructional staff or by self-joining), they are listed with a Remove check box next to their names. They may also have the Guest role, if they self-joined. Now, when students officially enroll in Axess after being added to a CourseWork site, our sync code will update their status in the Site Info participant list. The Remove check boxes will disappear and their roles will be updated to Student (if originally added as Guest).

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Category: Site Info / Managing Site Access

Feature: Enhancements to Site Info tool; greater ability for site admins to manage access to sites

Description:

Ability for instructional staff to easily add and remove rosters in a site (Site Info > Add Roster(s), Site Info > Remove Roster(s))

Option to disable site access (unpublish) automatically after term end date (Site Info > Manage Access or in Worksite Setup)

All settings are now editable for published assignments, with the exception of the Release To setting.

Scores for no-submission records can be exported.

Part scores now available in export of scores (for assignments with multiple parts).

Item analysis for additional statistical evaulation.

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Category: Materials

Feature: Enhancements to the Materials tool

Description:

Ability to show/hide multiple items at a time.

Only the top level items and folders of imported materials are designated as hidden (instead of each individual item), making it easier to manage.

Warning message appears explaining that imported materials are hidden by default (in Site Info > Import from Site and Worksite Setup).

'Show other sites' link at bottom of Materials page removed, due to security concerns.

Legend explaining permission types available under the Permissions link.

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Category: Gradebook

Feature: Include section membership as column in Export

Description: The Export function available in the Course Grade page and the Roster page will now include a column listing the section membership for each student in the site (or section) being exported. If a student belongs to multiple sections, all sections will be listed and separated by comma.

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Category: Login / Logout

Feature: Logout button deletes WebAuth single sign-on cookie

Description: The Logout button now deletes the WebAuth single sign-on cookie created when logging into CourseWork. Any subsequent login to CourseWork will prompt re-entry of username and password. This will prevent anyone from logging into another person's CourseWork account, even if the browser is left open after logging out.

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Category: Syllabus

Feature: Message to instructional staff about making syllabi accessible to the Stanford community

Description: A message appears in the Add Syllabus page highlighting the 'Stanford community' option to encourage instructional staff to make the syllabus accessible to students shopping for courses. If the 'CourseWork site members' option is selected, only students registered for the course will be able to access the syllabus.

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Category: Stanford Syllabus web site

Feature: Improved Academic Term drop-down menu

Description: This applies only to the standalone Stanford Syllabus web site (http://syllabus.stanford.edu). Terms are now grouped by academic year in the Academic Term drop-down menu, providing clarity in navigation.

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Resolved Issues:

The following issues have been fixed in this release. Please refer to the Current Issues In Production page to find out more about other issues in production with suggested workarounds and resolution status updates.

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Category: Axess Syncing (Course Enrollment) / Site Membership

Problem: The event-based syncing process, which pulls course enrollment data from Axess based on changes in enrollment, fails to update site membership automatically in some sites with more than one roster (cross-listed or multiple-section sites).

Resolution: The event-based syncing process now updates site membership automatically in all cross-listed and multiple-section sites, as expected.

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Category: Assignments

Problem: This applies to the Multiple Choice/Multiple Correct/Single Selection question type. After text is entered into the Rationale box and the answer is saved (by clicking Save or navigating to another question page), the Rationale text can not be modified or removed unless the answer selection is changed.

Resolution: Text in the Rationale box can now be modified or removed without changing the answer selection.

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Category: Assignments

Problem: If a timed assignment is submitted automatically after the time expires and the student has already navigated away from the assignment, the score does not get sent to the Gradebook.

Resolution: The score of a timed assignment now gets sent to the Gradebook (assuming that option has been selected), regardless of the circumstances of the submission.

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Category: Assignments

Problem: The time limit setting displays incorrectly as all zeros on the republish confirmation page when a published timed assignment has been edited and republished.

Resolution: The time limit setting now displays correctly on the republish confirmation page.

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Category: Drop Box

Problem: Students are able to click 'Remove' in the Actions menu of their root drop box folder. This causes the name of the folder to disappear, and it can not be reinstated by going to 'Revise Details'.

Resolution: Students will no longer have a 'Remove' command in the Actions menu of their root drop box folder.

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Category: Stanford Syllabus web site

Problem: Performance is slow when selecting a term and subject in the View Syllabus page.

Resolution: Performance of the View Syllabus page has been optimized.

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Category: Stanford Syllabus web site

Problem: The Academic Term drop-down list in the View Syllabus page gets duplicated each time a different term is selected.

Resolution: The Academic Term drop-down list no longer gets duplicated when selecting a different term.

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Category: Stanford Syllabus web site

Problem: This applies to non-instructors searching for instructors' course lists in the Admin Syllabus page. After making an initial entry in the Instructor SUNet ID field and searching for courses, updating the Instructor SUNet ID field does not refresh the course listings correctly.

Resolution: Updating the Instructor SUNet ID field now refreshes the course listings correctly.

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Spring 09 - Release 2 (March 6, 2009)

Resolved Issues:

The following issues have been fixed in this release. Please refer to the Current Issues In Production page to find out more about other issues in production with suggested workarounds and resolution status updates.

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Category: Syllabus

Problem: The Syllabus tool can be slow to load within a site and has also caused the entire CourseWork system to slow down.

Resolution: The Syllabus tool has been optimized to improve overall system performance and to increase response time within the tool itself.

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Category: Syllabus

Problem: If the Syllabus tool in a CourseWork site has not yet been accessed by a user with the add/edit permission (Instructor, Course Admin, TA), it will generate an error page when accessed by a user without the add/edit permission (Section TA, Librarian, Student, Guest).

Resolution: Accessing the Syllabus tool as a user without the add/edit permission no longer generates an error page.

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Spring 09 - Release 1 (February 27, 2009)

What's New?

Category: Navigation

Feature: Improved tab management

Description: The "more" drop-down menu at the far right of the screen (containing a list of sites not showing in the site tab navigation bar) has been replaced by a "My Active Sites" tab. This tab is easier to find and pops up a menu organizing all visible sites by term. It also contains instructions for hiding or reordering site tabs.

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Category: Assignments

Feature: Enhancements to the Assignments tool

Description:

Auto-save and Save on demand: The Assignments tool now saves every 15 minutes during test delivery, so student responses will no longer be lost due to system timeouts. There is also a Save button that allows students to save answers while remaining on the same page of the assignment.

Improved button configuration: To improve usability, the buttons have been renamed and reconfigured. The navigation buttons appear to the far left (Previous/Next), then the Save/Exit/Submit for Grading buttons appear to the right. The Submit for Grading button will no longer have the same position as the Save and Continue button (now called Next) to avoid students accidentally submitting the assignment before ready.

Ability to edit Parts in published assignments.

Time spent by students in timed assignments displayed in Scores > Total Scores page (instructor view).

Clarification on usage of Comments column (What's This? link and changes to interface).

Improved preview mode (instructor view): Fill in the Blank, Numeric Response and Matching question types are now functional in Preview Assignment. There is also the ability to view the Exit and Submit for Grading confirmation pages. The timer, which was inaccurate in Preview, has been replaced by a graphic warning instructors that the timer does not work in Preview.

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Category: Announcements

Feature: Email notification of announcements lists section recipients

Description: When an announcement has been restricted to particular section(s), the sections are listed in the email notification of the announcement.

Description: SUID numbers for students will now be shown as a column in the Course Grade, Roster and Assignment Summary pages of the Gradebook tool. The SUID numbers will also be included in the Export function. This closes a gap in functionality from the previous CourseWork system.

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Category: Materials / Site Info > Import from Site

Feature: Materials imported from another site are automatically designated as hidden

Description: When instructional staff use the Import from Site function in the Site Info tool to import materials from another site, the imported materials will be hidden from students and guests. They can then be released to student/guest access when the instructional staff sees fit. This closes a gap in functionality from the previous CourseWork system.

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Resolved Issues:

The following issues have been fixed in this release. Please refer to the Current Issues In Production page to find out more about other issues in production with suggested workarounds and resolution status updates.

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Category: Assignments

Problem: When a user with the Section TA role clicks the Copy link underneath the title of an assignment created by another site member, followed by the Copy confirmation button, an error page is generated. However, a Section TA can copy his/her own assignments.

Resolution: Section TAs can now copy any assignment in the Pending Assignments area.

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Category: Assignments

Problem: When a manual adjustment score is entered in the "Adj" column of the Total Scores page for a student who has not submitted the assignment AND the assignment is set to record the last score, the score is not sent to the Gradebook.

Resolution: Manual adjustment scores entered for students with no submission record now get sent to the Gradebook, whether the assignment is set to record the highest score or the last score.

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Category: Assignments

Problem: Entering scores or comments for a student who has not yet submitted the assignment causes "No Submission" to display in the Submit Date column, even after the student has submitted. It also causes the student's answers to disappear during assignment delivery if the student saves (Save for Later) instead of submitting the assignment.

Resolution: Entering manual adjustment scores no longer causes problems with a subsequent submission. However, the score will be erased if the student submits the assignment after the score is entered. The comment field has been disabled for any student who has not yet submitted the assignment to avoid these problems.

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Category: Homepage

Problem: Custom parts and attachments do not show up in the public version of a site's Homepage.

Resolution: All data in the editable portion of a site's Homepage (including custom parts and attachments) now appear in the public version.

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Category: Homepage

Problem: Instructors are randomly ordered in the Course Information area of the Homepage.

Resolution: Instructors are now ordered alphabetically by last name in the Course Information area.

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Category: Materials

Problem: When using Mac OS 10.5.3, 10.5.4 or 10.5.5, files will not upload successfully through WebDAV. File upload will appear to work at first, but then only a 0 kb file will appear in the site or an error message will appear, "The Finder cannot complete the operation because some data in "" could not be read or written (Error code -36)." Files can still be downloaded through WebDAV and folders can be created.

Problem: Creating a section with a slash mark in the name (e.g., "Section 9: Roble/Lagunita") will cause the section to be corrupted. Clicking the Edit link will generate an error report. Deleting the section will not work, in spite of a confirmation message to the contrary.

Resolution: Sections with slash marks in their names no longer throw an error. They can be edited and deleted without a problem.

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Category: Section Info

Problem: After a section is created, modifying the section name will not fully update the description found in the tools which allow you to restrict content to specific sections (Announcements, Materials, Schedule). For example, let's say you created a section called Discussion 1. Then, you changed that name to Discussion 2. When you create an announcement and select "Display to selected groups", the Title column will show "Discussion 2", but the associated Description column will show "[site title], Discussion1" instead.

Resolution: Modifying a section name now updates the section's description found in section-aware tools.

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Category: Syllabus

Problem: The File Upload option does not accept the .docx file type, as that was not part of the original design.

Resolution: The Syllabus tool now accepts the upload of .docx files.

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Category: Syllabus

Problem: The Inline Text option loads a rich-text editor which is too small and difficult to use.

Resolution: The rich-text editor in the Syllabus tool is now the same size as it appears in all other CourseWork tools.

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Winter 09 - Release 1 (November 20, 2008)

What's New?

Category: Roles

Feature: Changes to TA roles

Description: Currently, the Head TA role has full admin permissions and the TA role is limited to administering their assigned sections only. This has caused continuous confusion, since the TA role in the old CourseWork system had greater permissions. To resolve this, the former Head TA role will be now be named "TA" and the former TA role will now be named "Section TA."

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Category: New Tool

Feature: Forums

Description: This is a new tool, available on a pilot basis for Winter 2009. It is intended as a possible replacement for the current Discussion tool (CourseForum), since support for CourseForum will be discontinued at some point. The tool is available by special request. Please submit a HelpSU ticket if you would like to add the Forums tool to your site.

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Category: New Tool

Feature: Sign-up

Description: This is a new tool, available on a pilot basis for Winter 2009. It is intended to fill the functionality gap of the Event Sign-up tool that was available in the old CourseWork system. The tool is available by special request. Please submit a HelpSU ticket if you would like to add the Sign-up tool to your site.

Description: Access to Worksite Setup, CourseWork's self-serve site creation tool, was previously limited to those with faculty or staff affiliation. Since there have been many instances of postdoc students who teach classes, but will never have a staff affiliation, we have enabled Worksite Setup to be available for their affiliation type.

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Category: Axess Syncing (Course Enrollment) / Site Membership

Feature: Pull in discussion section enrollment data from Axess

Description: Recently, changes in Axess have made it much easier for students to sign up for discussion sections (and other non-lecture sections such as labs, activities, etc). CourseWork was not previously set up to pull this data into our system automatically, but we have now made changes to our sync code to pull in this data. That means instructors can handle their section enrollments directly in Axess instead of having to recreate those sections manually in CourseWork. See our Quick Start Guide for more details on setting up your CourseWork site to automatically manage sections based on Axess enrollment.

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Category: Assignments

Feature: Enhancements to the Assignments tool

Description:

Ability to create assignments quickly with simple markup text.

Ability to adjust point values directly in the Edit Assignment page, without the need to edit each question separately.

Ability to reset point values when a 'randow draw from pool' part is created.

Ability to upload files for student feedback in Scores pages.

Option to allow students to view feedback right after submission.

Submit for Grading confirmation page, which allows students to cancel submission and return to the assignment.

Improved, more concise warning messages.

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Category: Homepage

Feature: Enhancement to the public version of the Homepage tool

Description: The public version of a Homepage now displays official course data for all sections (including instructor/TA names, day, time, location), regardless of whether the Section Info tool is turned on or not. Previously, the only section information displayed on the public version of the Homepage came from the Section Info tool, which did not often include lecture sections. This is intended to make the public Homepage more helpful to students shopping for courses.

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Resolved Issues:

The following issues have been fixed in this release. Please refer to the Current Issues In Production page to find out more about other issues in production with suggested workarounds and resolution status updates.

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Category: Axess Syncing (Course Enrollment) / Site Membership

Problem: The event-based syncing process, which pulls course enrollment data from Axess based on changes in enrollment, fails to update the site membership automatically in a site with more than one roster. This affects sites with cross-listings or multiple sections. The previous syncing process, which pulls course enrollment data for all sites once a day (whether there is new data or not), updates site membership properly and will be used to compensate for this problem.

Resolution: The event-based syncing process now updates site membership in all sites, as expected.

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Category: Announcements

Problem: If you change the Availability selection from "Show" to "Hide" or "Specifiy Dates" in the Add Announcement page, then click the "Add Attachments" button, the Availability selection will reset to the default value of "Show".

Problem: If Japanese characters are entered into an annoucement, the email notification will not display those characters properly using the Zimbra email client (new Stanford WebMail client).

Resolution: Header information is now included in announcement email notifications, so Japanese characters will display properly in the Zimbra email client.

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Category: Assignments

Problem: If a published assignment is set up to send scores to the Gradebook tool and then gets removed, the entry for the assignment will not be removed from the Gradebook. It is not possible to delete the entry manually in the Gradebook tool either.

Resolution: Removing a published assignment will now also remove the associated entry in the Gradebook.

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Category: Assignments

Problem: If Submissions > Late Handling is set to "Late Submissions (After Due Date) will NOT be accepted" under Settings, the Allow Retake link will not show up under any student's name in the Submission Status page. This link should appear if the due date has passed or the student has used up their allowed number of submissions.

Resolution: The Allow Retake link will now appear, even if the Late Handling option is set to "Late Submissions (After Due Date) will NOT be accepted."

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Category: Assignments

Problem: If an assignment has been published and then the master copy in Pending Assignments is subsequently removed, the assignment's title can not be reused to create a new assignment. An error message will appear, stating "You cannot have duplicate assignment titles. Please choose another title."

Resolution: The title of a deleted pending assignment can now be reused to create a new assignment.

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Category: Assignments

Problem: All audio response files within the same submission have the same file name and will overwrite each other when downloaded. This gives the misleading impression that there is only one recorded answer for all the questions.

Resolution: Each audio response file will now have a unique file name.

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Category: Assignments

Problem: There are intermittent scoring errors with the Multiple Choice question type and Multiple Correct/Multiple Selection option. Sometimes, students will receive zero points or negative points when they should have partial credit.

Resolution: This question type now calculates scores correctly.

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Category: Assignments

Problem: The location of the Submit for Grading button sometimes results in unintended submission, since it appears in the same place as the Save and Continue buttons on other pages.

Resolution: A confirmation page now appears after clicking the Submit for Grading button, allowing students to go back to the assignment and continue working if the Submit for Grading button was clicked accidentally.

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Category: Assignments

Problem: Remove links next to audio recordings can cause confusion for students, because they sometimes use it as a way to get another chance at recording. The Remove link only deletes the recording; it does not allow for a new recording if the student has used up all allowed tries.

Resolution: Remove links will no longer appear next to audio recordings. They aren't really necessary, since recording another try will replace the previous recording.

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Category: Assignments

Problem: For questions with multiple responses per student (e.g., Multiple Choice/Multiple Correct, Fill in the Blank), the Student Response column in the Scores > Questions page does not display the responses in the same order for each student. This random ordering of responses makes it more difficult to compare students' answers at a glance.

Resolution: The Student Response column now displays all students' responses in the same order (e.g., first answer selection displayed first).

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Category: Homepage

Problem: Changes to Section Info and Syllabus tools don't automatically update the public version of the Homepage. Updates have to be forced by clicking Edit, then Update, in the site's Homepage tool.

Resolution: Changes made to Section Info and Syllabus will now update the public version of the Homepage automatically.

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Category: Materials

Problem: When a folder with content is selected, the Remove link is not activated and there is no Remove command in the Actions drop-down menu. The content has to be removed first, then the empty folder can be removed.

Resolution: A folder with content can now be easily removed by selecting it and clicking Remove.

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Category: Materials

Problem: When items have been reordered in the Materials main folder or a subfolder, adding new items can sometimes scramble the order of existing items.

Resolution: The custom order of items is now maintained, even when new items are added.

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Category: Materials

Problem: When adding or revising a citation list in the Materials tool, choosing the email notification option of "High - All participants" or "Low - Only participants who have opted in" fails to send an email to site participants.

Resolution: Email notification now works properly when adding or revising a citation list.

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Category: Stanford Syllabus web site

Problem: This applies only to the standalone Stanford Syllabus web site (http://syllabus.stanford.edu). In Admin View, courses are found by entering the instructor's SUNet ID in a search field. Entering "no sunetid" used to find all courses without an associated instructor, but this no longer works since the Stanford Syllabus site has been integrated with CourseWork. This feature is especially important to the Overseas Program, and similar programs in which the instructors don't have Stanford SUNet IDs, because a department admin needs to be able to upload syllabi on behalf of instructors.

Resolution: The "no sunetid" now finds all courses without an associated instructor in the Admin View of Stanford Syllabus.

Display change author/date/time in Last Modified column when published assignments are edited.

Display warning that assignment is inactive due to being retracted for editing.

Display "What's This" link to explain the difference between "Republish" and "Regrade and Republish" buttons.

Display warning that changes have been made to a published assignment in student view (Submitted Assignments).

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Category: Homepage

Feature: Persistent link to public version of Homepage

Description: There is now an option to generate a persistent link to a publicly available version of a CourseWork site's Homepage. This page will include the course's subject/number, title, description, section information and other meetings, plus the syllabus (if set to be publicly available). There is also a button to take site members directly to the CourseWork site. This addresses a feature gap between the old CourseWork system and CourseWork v5.

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Feature: Section membership indicated on Homepage

Description: Students (and guests) will see a "Member" label next to any section they have joined or been assigned. They no longer have to go to the Section Info tool to get this information.

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Category: Materials

Feature: Citation Helper

Description: This feature is used to create a citation list and add it to the Materials tool. Hover on the Add menu of any folder in the Materials tool and click "Add Citation List". Citations can be pulled in by searching Google Scholar or they can be typed in manually. Clicking on a citation title will then search for available copies in the Stanford University Libraries.

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Resolved Issues:

The following issues have been fixed in this release. Please refer to the Current Issues In Production page to find out more about other issues in production with suggested workarounds and resolution status updates.

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Category: Assignments

Problem: Any manual adjustment score entered in the Total Scores page does not get sent to the Gradebook if the student has no submission record. There is no way to edit the scores sent from Assignments directly in the Gradebook either.

Resolution: Now, if a score is entered in the Total Scores page for a student without a submission record, the score will get sent to the Gradebook (assuming "Grades sent to Gradebook" is selected in Settings).

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Category: Assignments

Problem: The "Save for Later" button causes confusion in timed assignments by giving the misleading impression that a student can pause the timer and return to the assignment later. In fact, once the student begins the assignment, the timer will keep running until the time is up, regardless of whether the student clicks "Save for Later", leaves the Assignment tool, or even logs out of CourseWork.

Resolution: The Save for Later button will no longer appear in timed assignments.

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Category: Materials

Problem: For sites with automatically managed sections, a section with a name matching the site ID will not appear under "Display this file to selected groups only" in any Add Item page, meaning that content in Materials can not be restricted to that particular section.

Resolution: Now, all sections defined in Section Info will be available to select under "Display this file to selected groups only" in any Add Item page.

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Summer 08 - Release 2 (June 15, 2008)

What's New?

Category: Assignments

Feature: Enhancements to the recording applet used in the Audio Recording question type

Description:

Ability to display multiple audio recording questions on a page. The recording applet is now launched as a pop-up window from a link in the questions page, similar to the behavior in the old CourseWork system. This avoids the instability/performance issues of loading multiple applets directly in the questions page.

Save/Close button in recording applet. The workflow of the new recording applet makes it less likely that students will hit the Save or Submit buttons within the questions page before the audio recording is done processing.

Ability to save recordings of up to 300 seconds reliably. This is the maximum recording time allowed in the old CourseWork system, so this improvement closes the functional gap we had when the maximum recording time that saved reliably was 180 seconds.

Improved processing time when saving a recording.

Volume meter bar to provide live feedback during recording. This will confirm to users that sound is being recorded and will allow them to monitor the recording level.

Feature: Enhancement to the Edit Published Assignment (EPA) feature that was first introduced in the Spring 08 - Release 1 (February 28, 2008)

Description: When an assignment has been retracted for editing, the feedback for the assignment available in student view is also retracted. This means that any changes to settings or content will not be reflected until the assignment has been republished. The purpose of this enhancement is to avoid student confusion by limiting their ability to see discrepancies in the feedback for their submitted assignments.

Summer 08 - Release 1 (May 22, 2008)

What's New?

Category: Assignments

Feature: Enhancements to the Assignments tool

Description:

"Mark for review" option underneath each question is configurable. It will not appear unless selected in Settings. When used, a "What's This?" link appears next to the feature to explain its purpose.

Ability to export student response data from an assignment into an Excel spreadsheet.

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Feature: Enhancements to the Edit Published Assignment (EPA) feature that was first introduced in the Spring 08 - Release 1 (February 28, 2008)

Description:

Instructors can modify published assignments after students have taken them.

There is an option to regrade submissions after making changes.

There is an option to allow students to retake and resubmit their assignment.

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Category: Homepage

Feature: Enhancements to the Homepage tool

Description:

Rich text formatting no longer shows up as HTML tags in Site Info and Search Sites (gateway page).

Image added to the homepage under course description renders correctly on both IE and Firefox.

Removing Custom Part content behaves like removing Other Meeting content. Users need to click checkbox next to the content and click the Update button.

Course long title corresponds to the short description field (under Site Info) and description field (under Search Sites on gateway page and under Membership in My Workspace). Users only need to make edits in one place (Homepage or Site Info) and the changes will take effect everywhere else.

When importing homepage content from a site from a previous quarter, the course long title shows up next to the course title.

When copying homepage content from multiple sites from previous quarters, course description from the most recent CourseWork site will be copied over. If there is other content (e.g., attachments, other meeting info, custom part info), they will be copied over in full.

Clearer instructions on where to modify section-related content under Course Meeting Information.

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Category: My Workspace/Membership

Feature: Display course long title

Description: Per user feedback, course long title is added to the description field in My Current Sites and Joinable Sites in the Membership tool. This makes the Membership tool look more like the My Courses page in the old CourseWork system, which displays both the course title and course long title (e.g., F07-AA-100-01: Introduction to Aeronautics and Astronautics).

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Feature: Better instructions on searching for CourseWork sites

Description: Users will now see detailed instructions on how to search for specific CourseWork sites(s) that one can join on the Joinable Sites page.

Description: Users will now see a clearer warning message informing them that Worksite Setup is intended to create one CourseWork site at a time.

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Category: Materials

Feature: Instructions for setting up WebDAV in Windows Vista

Description: Under the "Upload-Download Multiple Materials" link, there are instructions for setting up a WebDAV window using the Windows Vista OS, as well as a link to a Microsoft patch needed to enable WebDAV to work in Vista.

Description: In the Site Info participant list, SUNet ID and email address of each site member are now displayed. This feature addresses a functional gap between the old CourseWork system and CourseWork v5.

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Category: Syllabus

Feature: Publicly accessible syllabus now available

Description: If a syllabus is marked as "Public access" in CourseWork, it will now show up in the gateway's Search Sites list under the "Public Syllabus" area for that particular site. On the gateway page (http://coursework.stanford.edu), users can search for a specific CourseWork site and view the associated syllabus without having to log in to CourseWork. This addresses a feature gap between the old CourseWork system and CourseWork v5.

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Feature: Honor Code link now available

Description: A link to Stanford's Honor Code is available at the top of the Syllabus page in every CourseWork site. The Honor Code link is also available on the Stanford Syllabus web site. This addresses a feature gap between the old CourseWork system and CourseWork v5.

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Category: Roles

Feature: New Librarian role

Description: Per user request, a new Librarian role has been added. This role will have permissions to add content (e.g., course materials) to a CourseWork site but will not have access to student data.

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Resolved Issues:

The following issues have been fixed in this release. Please refer to the Current Issues In Production page to find out more about other issues in production with suggested workarounds and resolution status updates.

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Category: Global -- Rich-text editor (found in many tools)

Problem: The rich-text editor will not accept https links. The error message that appears when trying to save content with an https link is as follows: "Alert: The HTML attribute pattern 'https://coursework.stanford.edu' is not allowed"

Resolution: The rich-text editor now accepts links with the https protocol.

Resolution: Section-specific announcements, materials and schedule events no longer disappear if the Section Info tool is toggled between Automatic and Manual section management. However, access options will need to be reset for section-specific items if this kind of change is made.

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Category: Announcements

Problem: Email notifications of announcements fail in some sites. This is caused by a large number of site participants with invalid email addresses (20+) in a site.

Resolution: Announcements with email notifications now work as expected. The instructional staff will get notified of any site participants who do not receive email due to an invalid email address.

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Category: Announcements

Problem: When setting an announcement to show on a specific date range, choosing an Ending time in the 12 PM range saves as 12 AM instead.

Resolution: Announcements set to show on a specific date range now display at the correct times.

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Category: Assignments

Problem: The Download All function in the Questions page fails to download all the students' submitted files in some cases. This is caused by a student submitting more than one file with the same file name.

Resolution: The Download All function now downloads all submitted files. If a student uploads more than one file with the same file name, a version number is appended to the file name.

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Category: Materials

Problem: The Reorder function updates the Modified Date of all files in the folder being reordered. This is disconcerting to users, making it seem as if new versions of files have been uploaded.

Resolution: Reordering files in a folder no longer changes the Modified Date of each file, but will change the Modified Date of the folder.

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Spring 08 - Release 2 (March 7, 2008)

What's New?

Feature: Integrate Stanford Syllabus with CourseWork

Description: Stanford Syllabus was released to the Stanford community in Fall 2006. Conceived by the Committee on Undergraduate Standards and Policy (C-USP), funded by the Provost's Office, and developed by Academic Computing, the goal of the standalone Stanford Syllabus application is to provide a centralized online repository of syllabi for Stanford University courses. Beginning March 7, 2008, instructors who choose to use both the external Stanford Syllabus application and CourseWork will only need to post their syllabus once and the syllabus will show up in both locations.

Please note that the integration of Stanford Syllabus with CourseWork necessitated the inclusion of some feature regressions. As a result, instructors will notice the following changes to the Syllabus tool within CourseWork:

- Only one syllabus item can be added to the Syllabus tool within CourseWork. This can be a URL, a file, or inline text. This limitation of one syllabus item is due to the fact that the standalone Stanford Syllabus application allows instructors to upload 1 file for each course.

- If a syllabus item is marked as "publicly viewable" in CourseWork, it does not currently show up under the "Public Syllabus" view of Search Sites on the CourseWork gateway page. We hope to add this functionality in our next software release. Publicly accessible syllabi do work as expected in the standalone Stanford Syllabus application.

Spring 08 - Release 1 (February 28, 2008)

What's New?

Feature: Edit Published Assignments

Description: Instructors will now have the ability to edit assignment(s) that have already been published but have not yet been taken by students. The assignment will be temporarily retracted from student view until instructors make the desired changes. Once done with edits, instructors will need to republish to make the assignment available to students again. Instructors can modify existing questions as well as the delivery date options, feedback delivery options, and gradebook options under Settings.

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Resolved Issues:

The following 5 issues have been fixed in this release. Please refer to the Current Issues In Production page to find out more about other issues in production with suggested workarounds and resolution status updates.

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Category: Assignments

Problem: Timed Assignment auto-submit function fails to save data

Description: The time counter and progress bar are out of sync in timed assignments. This causes the five minute warning to pop up when there is actually less time left. The problem is more pronounced in longer assignments (more than 10 minutes). It can also cause the auto-submit function (when time runs out) to be delayed and fail to save data. This failure appears as an error message labeled "Discrepancy in Data". All the student's responses will be lost if this happens. When a student chooses the Submit for Grading button before the time runs out, the data saves properly.

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Category: Discussion

Problem: Users not able to access the discussion forum

Description: Due to extremely slow performance in the Discussion tool (found in Fall 2007), the access list update method was changed to a daily sync job, instead of generating the access list each time the Discussion link is clicked. Unfortunately, the code changes resulted in a few scenarios where the access list never updates and the site members are not able to load the discussion forum.

Description: The Access options of "available to site members", "publicly viewable", or "display to selected groups" don't make sense in the context of the Drop Box. The Drop Box is a private folder to share documents between the instructor and individual students. The Email Notification option also posed concern for students because the email would be sent to the entire site (e.g., other students). Although other students couldn’t actually access the files referred to in these notifications, the email gave the impression that they could.

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Category: Materials

Problem: Upload Files action fails to send email notification

Description: This problem occurs when a user selects Add > Upload Files in Materials. When the High or Low option is selected in the Email Notification drop-down menu, email is not sent out as expected.

Description: This bug occurs when the Section Info tool is turned on with automatic section management selected (in Options) AND content is posted to a specific group/section. It applies to content added in Announcements, Materials and Schedule. The automatic section roster updates cause the specific section access settings to be wiped out and the content to be unavailable to all site members.